The tiny Scottish fishing village of Cellardyke is one of the most unlikely homes for an independent record label you can imagine – a modestly built inlet sometimes shelters a handful of boats, seagulls prowl the steep, quiet, cobbled streets and most of the excitement comes from the odd time a cruise liner slips anonymously up the Firth of Forth.
It was, however, home to Fence, one of Scotland’s more renowned imprints of this century and for nearly a decade a joint effort run by Digi-folk scene pioneers Kenny Anderson (AKA King Creosote) and Johnny Lynch (AKA the Pictish Trail).
The partnership dissolved in 2013 and Cellardyke went back to somnambulance with it but Lynch, now relocated to the island of Eigg, chose to use the acrimonious split as something like therapy, stating in the recording of 2016’s Future Echoes that he, ‘Knew I was going to have to address the friendship with my best friend ending, and this is the first album where those thoughts have risen to the top’.
Turning loss into music has never usually been a process given to a joyful meta, but anybody expecting Future Echoes to be drowned under a tsunami of bitterness was proven very wrong as for his third album the man boasting a new life away from the wreckage of his recent past delivered a smart, deftly self-contained album full of hummable melodies and unafraid hooks.
Working again with long-term partner and Fridge bassist Adem Ilhan, the focus was on underplayed programming and Lynch’s dream-begging voice as opener Far Gone (Don’t Leave), Lionhead and Dead Connection all flocked to a warmly neo-psychedelic banner not unfamiliar to lovers of The Beta Band at their peak.
Sorely missed they may be, but there was consolation as not content with unloading this double-barrelled pop gun on a largely unsuspecting public, Lynch pressed on feverishly. And so a record which was ostensibly about life, death and renewal continued to shroud its fundament in the principles of openness enough for people to dip in without fear, the wispy Who’s Comin’ In, Strange Sun’s meandering journey into the cosmic and the slick, beatific finale After-Life all making for great noise by which to shuffle off our mortal coils.
And now it’s back again. The deluxe reissue game is one at the best of times with questionable ethics, but Future Echoes would probably be worth the ICYMI tag even without an intriguing additional bag of goodies including three live takes (Half Life, Far Gone, Strange Sun) from an outing at Kelvingrove Bandstand in 2017, a further trio of lo-fi makeovers for Afterlife, Dead Connection and Lionhead, along with a distortion heavy ambient versioning of Until Now by Canadian producer White Poppy.
Regret, disagreements, death, new beginnings; Johnny Lynch has used all these things as means of catharsis, writing songs with a granular bead of conscious happiness as opposed to the tragic feeling of being overwhelmed that so many men of his age can feel.
Meanwhile, in Cellardyke, the water continues to splash gently up against the jetty, and an old woman that may not really be there sings a happy song to herself that no-one else will ever hear.
